why I write poems…

Possibility I

I right poems because I dont spell good enouf too rite novels and my grammars atroshish.

I right poems because I red somewheres never trouble trouble.

I write poems because I’m still trying to impress my high school senior English teacher, Ms. Behrman.

I write poems because they reconnect me to my blood.

…so I can keep death at a puncher’s distance.

…because I was one of Woodstock’s “½ million strong” and still light candles of peace and love.

…because poems maintain this precious involuntary heartbeat song.

…because sometimes my mask slips ever so slightly revealing my hideous scars.

…because this is my way of not participating in the profiting off of others’ sweat.

Possibility II

I write poems because it is sometimes helpful to rev up the internal dialogue.

I write poems everytime I want to hug you.

…so I can heave praise at other hopeless romantics.

…to get a whiff of my karma, should there somehow still be a chance to mend it.

I write poems because years ago we stood outside churches holding candles praying for peace and got spit at.

I write poems because the holy bardic triumvirate: Dylan, Cohen, and Simon are there looking over my right shoulder.

I write poems because I grew up in Paterson (with 1 “t”).

… in homage to goat’s milk and sardines, as they nurtured and saved me when I was an infant.

…or just because I’m a disembodied artist in need of a soul.

Possibility III

I write poems to mend this constant imperfect heart which mostly has a vacancy, and I have been told vacancies potentially may be filled by the breath of the muse…. absence, vacancy—is the precondition for creativity.

I write these poems because I have talked and danced my way out of addiction, prison, and

because cancer didn’t get me, and

because I’m still convinced I’m immortal.

I write poems because my Leo sun and Sagittarian Jupiter trine, and

because I have hitchhiked back and forth across America and talked through the night with countless strangers, and essentially because participated in the miracle of the birth of my son.

Possibility IV

I write poems as I look forward to that good hard rain a’fallin.

I write poems to trap and then mull over any protean, elastic moment that may eventually stretch out my mind, thus entrapping fading memories into possible brilliant erudite corners.

I write poems, tossing my cards, my soul, into Gilgul, the cosmic wheel of life force giving energy!

My poems are written since I’m am interested in exploring the multiverse, where categories of rational and irrational and nonrational become obliterated, and instead allow a solitary access to those dimensions previously unexplored.

So in essence, I write poems since I am constantly reminded this world’s life is worth the effort it takes to breathe in and out, and…again…earnestly siphoning one more poem.

January, 2018

Port St. Lucie